"No, sir, it is just a little bit I have gleaned with mamma."
"You stole it," replied the soldier. "Don't you know that everything belongs to the Germans? If you have corn you must have stolen it."
And the perquisitioners carried away in triumph the small sack, the beautiful golden loaf, and even the dishful of half-ground flour. On coming back, Mme. Turgau found Lucienne in tears, Claire weeping in imitation of her sister, and Jacquot, ever ready to make an uproar, screaming at the top of his voice. After these fatal visits we had still more holes to take in in our belts. Nothing was ever left on our table. The dishes, few in number, were immediately divided into seven parts, and every one thought when rising from table: "I could begin again with pleasure."
The question of light was another plague of our life. The last drop of petroleum, the last traces of linseed oil had been converted into smoke a long time before. We were obliged to use horse-oil like our neighbours.
Horse-oil! Oh! for ever and ever nauseous remembrance! Always half-congealed, brownish, sticky, stinking, it made its bold manipulators sick for an hour.
This oil was manufactured by a man in the village when he could procure a dead horse, not too lean; and as we could not get as much as we had wished, we had to be sparing of it. The villagers simply poured it into an old sardine box, and the wick, leaning against the metal brim, smoked, charred, smelt nasty, and gave as little light as possible.
In spite of our efforts, this half-liquid matter energetically refused to ascend in the lamp; and we were forced to let it burn openly in a receptacle of some kind or other, and to support it by an ingenious system of pins. In fact it was so ingenious that the wick was swamped in the oil every moment, and we were left groping about the dark room, whose air was infected with a smell of burnt flesh. Doleful evenings, still more doleful nights. We no longer slept as we had slept before the Hussars' serenades. In order to give a larger apartment to Bubenpech, Geneviève and I had to be satisfied with the "small room" which is on a level with the yard and icy cold in winter. A simple rush-mat covered the pavement; the stove was small, the fuel rare, our blanket thin—the Hussars had requisitioned two others. We went to bed shivering with cold; our hot-water bottle alone gave us a little life. As to sleep.... One does not sleep much in an invaded country; every moment some unwonted noise makes you start; and then the rumbling of the cannon disturbs you, and the thought of the absent sends a thrill through your heart.
And then you ask yourself: How long? how long? In February 1915 the end seemed to have been postponed. "Our soldiers will come back next spring," said the peasants. Resigned to fate, we all waited for their return, and long were the nights. I know people who went to bed at five o'clock, without a dinner, for good reasons, and got up at about eight o'clock. How many pangs and cares thus wandered in the darkness! Geneviève and I dreaded the shades of evening, and it was often midnight before we made up our minds to blow out the light. Many a nightmare startled us, keeping us wide awake for the rest of the night. Who shall describe the horror of the dreams dreamed during the war? The dreams of the conquered! Every night brought its own vision, but two came back with a most distressing obstinacy.
A landscape covered with snow, a great deal of snow, round-topped mountains, the wind tossing the branches of the fir-trees. It looks like the Vosges. Why? Posy, are you in the Vosges? How can the wind make such a noise through the branches? I see but one fir tree black against the gloomy sky. And I hear it thunder, yet the thunder never roars in winter. I see a crow whirling round and round before it alights. There is nothing under the fir tree. But I know something must be there. Here it is, it is black ... it is long. The crow hovers. I do not stir, my feet are sunk in the snow. Yet I come nearer, or rather the thing is approaching. Yet it is exactly what I thought; it is a dead body. Its uniform is untouched. Its face ... the eye-sockets are empty. Who is it? who is it? The crow has torn out his eyes! Yet we buried the scout in Chevregny. Who is it? Oh, God! he that is nearest to me in the world!
Posy!...